Sounds of July

Postage-stamp Yards

Sitting here at my dining room table, it’s pretty quiet – and sounds like a summer afternoon. Occasional shouts of children filter in through the window, the fan whirrs [sort of] quietly overhead, and there is an occasional gardening machine (lawn mover, edger?) briefly creating some dissonance. Thank goodness the backyards in Brooklyn are postage-stamp size; mowing the lawn only takes about 5 minutes, for anyone on my block.

geosaurus.tumblr.com

I am relaxed – which is no small feat – but there’s a little bit of a nagging feeling, which I easily ignore much of the time, that I am not ‘getting enough done’ in this wonderful expanse of free time. The summer is when I can do grand planning, self-study, pleasure reading, and quilting. I have a list which I tried to keep manageable, but it’s always longer than any one person could accomplish in a summer. I’ve been reading on line and on Twitter other teachers’ preparatory work, and I’m wondering whether I’ve gotten anything done. So, to put my mind to rest for the moment, I thought I would make a list of what I want to do and what I have done to get some perspective.

(3) Work through 4 units in Schaum’s, although I haven’t gotten to the hard stuff yet;

(4) Read half of Invisible Children;

(5) Worked through a whole bunch of hands-on activities collected through the year and at conferences and explored their inclusion in geometry class;

(6) Make slow progress on all three quilts;

(7) Get back into the MTBoS and my tweeps, which thankfully, wonderfully is always available, which includes not only chatting but actively reading blogs (which means linking to more blogs with more ideas and on and on) ;

(8) Gone to the gym every other day – consistently!

(9) Caught up on a LOT of Netflix binging!

I guess I’m on the right track; it’s just when I hear those sounds of July, I feel SO lazy, and wait – there’s another series on Netflix I haven’t watched yet?